Patent Suit Over Timex Bodylink Watch Revived

(CN) – The Federal Circuit resurrected a claim that Timex’s Bodylink watches, which can monitor a wearer’s heart rate during exercise, violate a patent held by Paragon Solutions.

Paragon’s patent covers an exercise monitoring system that looks like a high-tech belt and watch. The patent describes the system as having three components: an electronic positioning device, a physiological monitor and a display unit. When a user wears the system, the positioning device – often a GPS device – tracks the user’s location, altitude, velocity, pace or distance traveled. Data is also collected by the physiological monitor and sent to the display unit, or watch. The district court rejected Paragon’s infringement claims based on its construction of the phrases “data acquisition unit” and “display unit.” The lower court interpreted “data acquisition unit” as a single structure composed of the GPS and physiological monitor. But Paragon argued, and the appeals court agreed, that the unit can be a separate structure that collects and interprets data from the other components. The district court also construed “display unit” as a “unit for displaying real-time data provided by the data acquisition unit.” The problem with this reading, Judge Linn wrote, is that it “sheds no light on whether ‘real-time’ means ‘instantaneous’ or, if not, on how much of a delay is permissible.” Because the Federal Circuit modified the definitions of both terms, it vacated the judgment of non-infringement and remanded.